They approached the steps. These rose from a junction platform between catwalk spans. The steps ran up between two huge whizzing flywheels to another platform gantry that they could barely see in the smoke.

Drusher spotted movement beyond the steps. Two more animations. One was a hunched, decayed thing. The other was Deputy Cronyl. They were closing in.

‘Just get to the steps and get up,’ said Nayl.

The four began to ascend as fast as they could. Drusher didn’t want to look back. Cronyl had been moving quite fast, at a brisk stride.

Voriet slipped. They caught him, and Macks and Nayl began to carry him between them.

‘Move, move!’ Drusher urged. He glanced behind him. Cronyl was on the steps, the other two animations not far behind him.

‘Leave me,’ gasped Voriet.

‘Shut the hell up,’ Macks told him.

They reached the upper platform. It was a broad area of deck, with two exits, one at each end, both staircases leading up.

An animation was coming towards them from the right-hand flight of stairs. It was the Cognitae agent Blayg. The top of his head was missing, and his portly face was drenched in dried blood. A combat assault rifle was hanging around his shoulders on a sling, bobbing against him as he walked. It was just dead weight he was dragging along with him.

‘Other way,’ said Nayl. They turned.

Audla Jaff was coming towards them from the other flight of steps. The psykana shock wave that had destroyed her seemed to have broken everything inside her. She moved like a damp sheet hung from a wire, loose and heavy, one shoulder drooping, her head tilted askew. Her clothes were soaked in blood.

There was no way past either of them. Cronyl and the other two animations were almost at the top of the stairs behind them.

They were cornered, all exits blocked. Drusher wondered if he should stand his ground and wait for the hands of the animations to reach him, or admit defeat and take a running jump off the platform. He tried to decide which would be a worse way to die: the eradicating horror of the animations’ touch, or a long, conscious plunge into a lake of flame.

He put himself in front of Macks.

Nayl knew it was useless, but he pulled out his Tronsvasse. He fired multiple times at Blayg. Fizzling green light ate his shots. One round cut the sling of the autorifle, and it clattered onto the deck. Blayg stepped over it. Nayl turned and shot at Jaff.

The electric aura around her turned his shots to vapour.

The animations raised their hands.

‘What do we do?’ asked Davinch.

Gobleka was gazing at Eisenhorn. Eisenhorn simply stood there, staring ahead at nothing with his shining eyes.

‘Let’s get him into the palace,’ he said. ‘Run some tests, perception exams, psychometrics, you know.’

Davinch grinned at him.